Chechen in Extradition Dispute: Criminal or Peacemaker?

By STEVEN LEE MYERS

Published: December 9, 2002

MOSCOW, Dec. 8—
Akhmed Zakayev has been an actor and a rebel commander, a negotiator, a politician and then a commander again. Bearded, articulate and mild-mannered, he has over the last decade become perhaps the most prominent public face of Chechnya's struggle for independence from Russia.

To the Russian government, he is a terrorist and a murderer, who once shot the fingers off a man and kept a prison in the basement of his house in Chechnya, a Kremlin aide said. To others, even some in Russia, he is none of those things, but rather the best hope for a peaceful resolution of Russia's long, bloody Chechen conflict.

Mr. Zakayev, the chief envoy of Chechnya's ousted president, Aslan Maskhadov, is now the subject of a second extradition dispute in recent weeks, this time between Russia and Britain. He was arrested late Thursday on his arrival in London, two days after the authorities in Denmark, who had held him for more than a month, rebuffed Russian demands to extradite him. He is now free on bail pending a hearing on Wednesday as to whether he should be extradited to face criminal charges in Russia.

His fate has become a test of President Vladimir V. Putin's efforts to portray the Chechen conflict as part of the larger struggle against terrorism. How it turns out may affect the course of the war, deciding whether it ends in a negotiated peace or grinds on with escalating severity.

In an interview last week in Copenhagen, as he hurriedly prepared to leave for Britain, Mr. Zakayev insisted that Chechnya's rebels wanted peace, but warned that some were prepared to stage new attacks that would cause ''big losses in the civilian population,'' like the 57-hour siege of a Moscow theater in October that left at least 129 hostages and 41 Chechen guerrillas dead.

''We have ended up in a vicious circle,'' he said. ''The Russian forces are carrying out punitive actions against the civilian population, and the resistance fighters are carrying out retaliatory actions against the Russian forces.

''In Russia and in Chechnya, the situation is getting out of control. And such actions that took place in Moscow, they can be repeated.''

Russian officials have cited such warnings as proof that Mr. Zakayev and Mr. Maskhadov are organizing more terrorist attacks. Mr. Zakayev denied that, but his remarks suggested that the leaders of the rebellion might no longer exert control over its most prominent commanders.

That raised the question of whether they could bring a halt to the violence even if, as Mr. Zakayev said he hoped, negotiations took place.

''In Chechnya every day, after every mopping-up operation, autonomous groups that want to take revenge are formed that are not under the control of the general staff of the Chechen armed forces,'' he said, referring to the military wing of Mr. Maskhadov's leadership. ''They are striking independently, as they wish, and they are choosing their own methods of retribution.''

Mr. Zakayev, 43, has long been viewed as a voice of moderation among Chechnya's rebel leaders. A professional actor before the wars began, he negotiated the settlement that ended the first war with Moscow in 1996 and, after losing a bid for the presidency of the Chechen republic in 1997, became a deputy prime minister in charge of education, culture and relations with Moscow.

In Copenhagen for a conference of Chechen representatives when the guerrillas seized the theater on Oct. 23, he was the first and most prominent of the rebel leaders to denounce it. On Oct. 30, he was arrested by the Danish authorities at Russia's behest. In the interview after his release last week, he called the siege a tragedy that scuttled quiet efforts to negotiate an end to the conflict.

''It brought to naught, for all practical purposes, all the work I had done for a year and a half,'' he said.

After the siege, a rebel Web site announced that Shamil Basayev, one of the Chechen commanders, had claimed responsibility. Mr. Maskhadov had appointed him the head of the Chechen military committee in August, apparently in an effort to unify factions fighting the Russians.

Mr. Zakayev said he was unable to confirm Mr. Basayev's role in the siege. He said he spoke briefly with Mr. Maskhadov after being released by the Danish police last week and had asked for an explanation, but had not yet received one.

Asked if it was possible that the siege was organized in part to scuttle the talks he had been pursuing, Mr. Zakayev said he did not know.

While he denied that Mr. Maskhadov had a role in the siege, he acknowledged that the leader of Chechnya's rebellion was himself becoming more radicalized.

''For now he is controlling the situation, but how long can this continue?'' he asked. ''With each day, the war itself is becoming more and more radical.''

Mr. Zakayev has not been in Chechnya since early 2000, when he was badly injured in a car accident during the Russian siege of the capital, Grozny. At the time, he was a commander of a special military brigade organized by Mr. Maskhadov. After he recovered, in 2001, Mr. Maskhadov appointed him his chief envoy and spokesman in exile.